The Nateland Podcast - 7: #7 Grocery Stores

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

This week, Brian prepares for his comedy special, Aaron has to navigate some aggressive geese, and Dusty visits the Space Force. Then the guys get into this week's topic of Grocery Stores by learning about parking lot layouts, store display strategies, and shopping cart conspiracy theories.This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Betterhelp.com/NATE Your emotional wellbeing matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at Betterhelp/com/NATE. Rocket Money- Rocketmoney.com/nateLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster.  Join at RocketMoney.com/NATE today! Factor Meals: Factormeals.com/nate50offHead to Factormeals.com/nate50off and use code nate50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a year! *Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase.* Make healthier eating easy with Factor.

The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Hello, common folks. And hey, boars, this is Public Figures podcast.

We're public figures. You guys are just the public. Welcome, as always. I'm here with my co-host, Erin Wors. Weber. All right. And he needs no introduction. Dusty, the knife man, Slay. Okay. Dusty's wielding, wielding, holding a knife at the table. Oh, man. Look at that. Yeah, if you're listening, Dusty has a knife on him. What's that all about?

Well, I always have a knife, but... You don't take it out and flaunt it around the table, though. Yeah, but I'm kind of tired of some stuff going on around. It's a Montana knife, what's like. Yeah. It's what I gut fish with. You ever play the game where you put your hand out on the table and then you take the tip of the knife and you go between the fingers? I have played that, yeah. When I was younger, we used to be reckless like that. Yeah, did you ever slip up, cut your hand?

I've been cut many times. Yeah. Well, welcome, everyone. And that introduction was a little tongue and cheek there, guys. I don't know what you think that I think I'm better than you. I mean, I probably am, but just a little joking around. Belittle Bates. I enjoyed it.

I thought that was our best intro yet. Well, thank you, Dusty. Except for the one that I did. But yeah. Well, welcome. Good to see you, man. It's been a couple weeks since we pre-tate the last episode. Yeah, yeah.

So I haven't seen you guys in forever. What's been going on? I'm always happy to see you guys. Well, you can see me in a couple weeks in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at Sisyphus Brewing Company at the end of March. All right. Do you want to see me in person? Okay.

You can see me this weekend. Three locations in Florida. Florida and one in Alabama. All right. Four shows? Four shows of four days. Destin, Tallahassee, Papaddo Beach, and Gadsden, Alabama. Oh, Gadsden. I used to have some family in Gadsden. Yeah.

Yeah. Probably still do. You do too, right? You think you know them well enough to hit them up and tell them to go to Brian's show? No, no. That's why I don't even know if they still live there. The people that I knew have died, but they, you know, that was my family. They've died, but I still have some family. I just don't know them as well. You have family and guests, right? Yeah, none I know well enough to hit up, though.

I wouldn't even get in there. I was just someone, because you guys have mentioned that previously, implied that maybe you guys were related and don't know it. That would surprise me. Me too. Yeah. Well, look, me too. Me too.

But you never know. Well, cool. And where are you going to be? Oh, I'll be in Florida. I'll be in Clearwater, Florida on Friday, and Orlando on Saturday. Well, we should get together. We should get together. I like to take my shirt off in Florida and just...

Me too. That's what I plan on doing the whole time. You don't know, but you just signed up to drive Brian an hour across down somewhere. We should get together. Would you pick me up from the airport? Well, Brian knows I don't get together. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Unless you're on the show with me. Yeah, that was such an empty gesture. Yeah, we'll meet up. Yeah. No, and you know, you're not going to see him. Yeah, that was actually a year ago this week, I was in Boston the same time Dusty was. I'm like, let's get together. And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And then I text, and he's like, nah, let's don't. Well, and, you know, it's just, it all always sounds good to get together.

Yeah. But it usually is, you know, you're in a same city, but you're not close to each other. That is true. But by get together, you mean you want him to just come to where you are. I was going to do that. I, because I flew in after you'd already arrive, and I was going to drive and meet you somewhere and you're like, nah. I don't think that's true. It was. I was like, let's meet for coffee. And then we'll post how, oh, look, for top coffee shops and you're like, ah, I'm going to take a nap.

Oh, yeah. Well, that could be true, too. Now, in fairness to Dusty, he said after his show, he was going to go smoke cigars and invited me to come meet him for cigars. And you bailed on that. I did, because we were like 45 minutes away from each other. Right. That was a good time, though.

You know, my friend who was opening for me, Derek Humphrey, we went and had some sushi in Boston. And he got sick. But you didn't? No. But I don't eat shellfish. So I bet he had some, I bet he had some kind of shellfish type. And it got him sick. Had a shrimp, shrimp sushi or something? Yeah, probably so. Can't eat that stuff, guys. What were you guys this weekend? We haven't seen each other a couple weeks. I've been across the border. I was in Edmonton, Alberta, up in Canada for a few days, spent four days at the West Edmonton Mall, one of the largest malls of North America. There's a seal in there.

There's a pirate ship. There was a jujitsu tournament going on. Wow. I mean, it was just chaos. And you went to meat? I did go to meat. Yeah. I brought J. Flake to meet.

Yeah. And I couldn't tell them what it was called before I took them. Yeah. I got a restaurant. I'm not going to tell you what it is because you're not going to want to go. But we went. And I've never been. So it's just all meat.

It's a barbecue place. Why wouldn't Jay want to go? Because it's weird to ask you when to go. So it's an odd name for a rest. I like the name because I, you know, I like meat. And so I'm into it. This is crazy. They have a brisket there that's very good.

It is good. And, you know, Edmonton is, that's cattle country up there. So they do beef well. You know, at the same time, you were there. I was in Montana. We weren't that far away. It's still like nine hours away. I don't know.

I admit somebody came to my show and they said we had to choose between driving down to Montana to see Dusty or come to see you. And it was the drive that made the difference. 100%. They made it sound like they were choosing me. And I was like, how far do you live from here? They're like, oh, about 10 minutes. Oh, yeah. Well, that's an easy choice for sure.

But then I just got back the other day from Lexington, Kentucky. It was a comedy off Broadway all weekend. One of my favorite clubs. Just a great club. everybody there is awesome. One of my favorites. It was a lot of fun. Thank you to everybody who came out to those shows.

You know, the first few times I went there, I would tell people, yeah, but they don't have a green room. And the truth is, I was just selling so few tickets. They didn't feel the need to take me to the green room. They go, you can just take the whole back corner of the room. Exactly. So for years, I'm like, yeah, it's a good club. They just don't have a green room. They got a nice green room.

They got their own bathroom. up there. That's hilarious. Yeah, but when you don't sell a lot of tickets, you can hang out in the back and nobody really bothers you. But not now. Now, I'm a, you know, big deal. So that's right. I have to hang out of space. Yeah, yeah, where were you? Where have you been? Well, I've been here. I knew the answer. I'm a big deal now. I haven't worked the last two weeks. No, I've been doing shows here at Zanis, all-star shows, Nate Land Live shows, getting ready for my big special. That's right. It's coming up. Yep. Yep. So I've been doing that. This weekend we had a birthday party for Eleanor.

That's less important. Yeah, Hannah wasn't invited because you guys didn't invite me to her birthday party. That's interesting. Yeah, so we're like, no, we're not doing it. I'm still upset about that. What are you going to wear on the special? Do you know? Do you have you thought about all that?

I do have some thoughts on it. I've got one option that that's my leading candidate, but I have some other options. And we're going to meet and kind of talk about. set design. Did you get Christy Johnson involved? Christy Johnson's very involved. Shout out purpose boutique in the Tacoma, Washington area. Yeah. So Christy hooked me up when I was there a few months ago.

Did you see Chrissy's husband on the cruise? He's jacked. Flip. Flip. He's jacked. Oh, isn't he a Navy seal or something? Maybe, but I had no idea. Yeah.

So anyway, my special. I'm just telling. I've met him several times and I, you know, I didn't see it coming. Yeah, he's very jacked. Yeah. Uh, so you were in meat. Um, anyway, yeah. Well, I was, uh, two weeks ago, I was in Montana.

I was in Billings and Butte. And the Billings show was first. Uh, my opener, Will O'Donnell, got a seven hour flight delay in, in Denver and missed the show. Wow. I found a local opener, very funny. and I was hoping, part of me was thinking, is this the time where I do the whole show myself? Oh, man.

Finally. This might be the worst thing that ever happened to Will O'Donnell. I didn't do it. But you wanted to do it. I really thought about it. I go, is this going to be where I go out and do it myself? But you know what? That was one of the best shows I've had in a long time.

The Billings show was really great. And then I went down to Butte also a great show. Was it at that theater in Billings? It was at a theater. So they used to do the Big Sky Comedy Festival was a competition. And they would do, the finalist would perform in that theater. And everybody else would go watch the show there. And that theater was awesome.

It was so great. Yeah. I loved it. I mean, I just, the audience was great. I mean, they were just fired up. Yeah. I did 90 minutes. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How much did the opener do? He did about 20. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. He ran the light by 15.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I, you guys have both graciously agreed to open for me on my special. Oh, I didn't know where you're actually going to do that. Yeah, I guess. But then I want to say, I got one more thing, though, for you. I want to get back to this. But this weekend, I did three Air Force bases in Colorado. All right. And you'll like this. Two of them, Space Force bases. Whoa. Yeah. So I didn't tell him.

I don't think space is real. Yeah. It is weird to hang out at night and smoke cigars on an Air Force base because it gets pretty empty at night. And then around 10 o'clock, they play a song. They play taps. It plays over the loudspeakers. How does taps go?

I don't know. Somebody told me that's what the song is. Okay. And then I was sitting out there one night. And that song started playing. And then a guy basically ran. ran back to his room. And I thought, should I be out here? Is this okay? And it was okay. Nobody ever said anything to me, but I had a great time. All right. So they go to bed? I don't know. But at 10 p.m.

They play. They play that. And then this guy came running. And I go, how you doing? And he goes, he weirdly said hey to me. And then went on in. You know, at my grandfather's funeral, he was in the Air Force, they played taps at his funeral, and a guy held up a bugle. But I was looking, it was a fake bugle that just had a little button on it. So he was just holding it up and he pushed a button in it. Wow. And it played it. I think it's probably hard to find enough guys that play the bugle. Yeah, it probably is hard.

There's probably one left in the whole country that can play a bugle. Yeah. And that are also in the Air Force? Yeah. You know? So it might not have been a real bugle, is what I'm saying. And then I had an opener, Walter Campbell. He's a 20-year retired Air Force veteran.

It was great. We had such a great time. It's a lot of fun. Cool. And he's a comic? He is a comic at a Baltimore. But is, you know, kind of the Air Force guy. Yeah.

A couple of Air Force guys. They drive you to all the gigs and get you on to the bass. Yeah. They're musicians and stuff too sometimes. Or is it just comedians? I think so, yeah. That's awesome. It's like a USO tour.

You don't have to leave the country. It's nice because, yeah, I mean, you know, it's guaranteed money. You don't have to worry. I mean, if, you know, like people, one of the shows, because I did the two Space Force venues, and then I did the Academy, the Air Force Academy. Okay. So I saw the Air Force Football Stadium.

That's cool. And, you know, and they would, that one was a 430 show, and it was our lightliest attended show. And people were, apologizing about the light attendants. And I was just thinking, it doesn't make any difference. Yeah, exactly. Y'all could leave now if you want. I don't care. But this great. No, I like them. And, you know, also people appreciate it. You know, they're on military base. They're working. They're serving

the country. Yeah. And then you get to, you know, come in and entertain them. Yeah. That's great. That's awesome. It's a little late for that after you just kept emphasizing it's just all about the money. Well, listen, everybody knows that we're all, nobody thinks it would be less, genuine if I were like, I'm just doing it because I love people. Yeah. We're all doing it for the money. Yeah. I do it for the smiles on people's faces. Yeah. That's what I do. It's a bonus that people do need laughter and we get to provide that for them. It is a bonus. But, you know, let's be honest. People are like, hey, will you come out to Colorado and do three free shows for us?

Yeah. It's going to be tough to us. I still get those emails. Yeah, Fort Collins, Colorado, $75 no hotel. Can you be here tomorrow? Nah. But I had a couple of delays, too. Did you forward that to me? He's doing it. He's driving.

Yeah, I want to be out there this. But, you know, I got a couple of delays on the way out there. And I thought I was going to miss the show. I showed up 30 minutes before the show started. Wow. Wow. It's been crazy. American Airlines is falling apart.

Yeah, that's what everybody's saying. Southwest rises to the top. I'm Southwest all the way now. Well, Henry Cho, had to cancel a show this weekend in Tucson because his flight from Nashville to Dallas got diverted to Little Rock. On an emergency landing?

Emergency landing engine failure. Wow. And he said he was doing a lot of prey in. I bet. Until that plane landed. But yeah, that's pretty scary. Wow, that is crazy. Did you talk to him at all?

You called him and talked to him? We texted. Okay. Did he see one of the engines go out or something? No, he said the pilot just came on and announce that. You almost don't even need to tell the passengers. You know what?

We've got to land in Little Rock. We'll tell you why when we're on the ground, you know? Yeah. I'd almost rather you tell me there's like a serial killer on board. Then the engines have failed. Yeah, I would go. We got a medical emergency we have to land. That's what I would do.

But maybe you're not allowed to lie like that. Maybe not, yeah. Maybe if the pilot goes, there's a medical emergency, I'm having a heart attack. Dude, if you imagine making that announcement. You know you have to get like your tone of voice right before you make it. Because if you come on there and go, oh, hey, everything's fine. You've got to like, oh, okay. Hey, everybody, we're going to make it, you know.

He's really cool. And then you see him parachute out of the plane. You see him in the window? flipping you off. Oh, that's terrifying, man. We have a medical emergency. Our engine's out, so we're all going to die. Yeah.

But anyway, Henry Land is saying... Tom Hanks is making the movie for it later. That's the worst part of all. Anyway... How did Tom Hanks go from one of the greatest actors of our time to the guy who does everything like that. I can answer that. Okay.

When he snubbed you at the Ryman, that's when your attitude toward him changed. I don't think he snubbed me. According to you, he didn't come up and talk to you afterwards after he did a joke about it. Yeah, but. If he had come up and said, great set, you'd be like, Tom Hake still got it. He's still. That is all it would take for me, too. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, he didn't. So. For me, it was saving. Mr. Banks. You remember that movie where he plays like Disney or something? I go, it's too much now. What are we doing? He's Disney's Mr. Rogers. He's the, you know, I'm the captain. He's an astronaut. He's sully. He's everybody. He's got range. Has he been the president of anything? Has he been Garbage Man number two? No, no, no, no. Or number one. I don't think he has been the president

anything. Well, that'll happen soon, I'm sure. Yeah. I think he's too likable to play a president. He was the every man. That was his whole thing, right? Still is. Wow. I don't think so. His image has been tarnished a bit over the years. Tom Hanks has?

I think so. Because he keeps playing these. What? Just Mr. Rogers. You're the hero. We get it. We get. He's playing Gandhi next year.

I saw that. I'd see that. Yeah, we'd go see him in Gandhi. Just to see him. what the makeup looks like, huh? Ben Kingsley played Gandhi. He did, and I think it hasn't aged particularly well. Anyway, I was going to say, I saw that Louis CK joke over the weekend about Goodwill

Hunting. Oh, that's such a great joke. It is such a great joke. You ever see that? He's talking about, you know, Goodwill Hunting, the movie, he's like a genius. He's like, Matt Damon wrote the movie. And he's like, first of all, I'm a genius. And, but I'm also tough.

Like, I fight people all the time. I'm complicated. It's just a great bit. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. March. March is International Women's Day, guys. Well, I think it's International Women's Month, right? I think it's just the day.

I think it's for the whole month. It's a time to celebrate the strength, care, and resilience women bring to every part of our life. At work, in relationships, in families. and in the mini roles they carry every day. When I think about a woman who's had a lasting impact on me, I think about Abigail Barkett. Wait, what?

She's someone who shows up for others in ways that really matter. All right. I need to start reading this copy before the show. Okay, sure, Abigail, but also my wife and my mom. Can I do anything without any of those women. but many women carry so much that their own emotional well-being can get overlooked. Taking time for yourself matters too. Therapy can help you reflect, set healthy boundaries, and find more balance in your life.

Better help connects you with licensed therapists and matches you with someone based on a short questionnaire about your needs and preferences. And if the matches are right, you can switch therapist anytime. Your emotional well-being matters, Dusty. So find support and feel lighter in therapy. said that to me and I appreciate that. Well, you're welcome. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash Nate. That's better h-elp.com slash Nate. Can I share some Nateland news with you? I would love it. Let's get into it. Dusty, can I share some with you?

Yes, please do. This will be news to Dusty. Brad Upton is recording a special. Put the knife away. You can't hold a knife out. March 29th at the Franklin Theater. It says here in Nashville, but we guys know it's actually in Franklin. It's in Franklin. Yeah. Tickets are still available. He was on season two of the showcase. We say it all the time, but Brad is so funny.

Very, very funny. So go check that out. One of the top dry bar guys, maybe the top. Nate Land presents the showcase season four. We hosted these, and they were all great. The first set is from Vince Caron. Vince Caron. I hosted that show.

Grown, very funny, had a great set. Very funny. Excited to see it on film because I was in the room and it was hot. Yeah. That debuts this Thursday at 7 o'clock Central, the Nateland YouTube channel. We're going to have a new comic every week. Bits came down from Chicago to film it. We had people from all over the country come in.

Peter Wong, like, drove. He was stuck in New York City and just got his shoveled his car out. We had a few from outside the States, too. I mean, it's becoming a thing. people are coming in to do it. So make sure you check those out. They're all great comics, and they're on there for a reason. So if you like us, if you like the world that we're in, you're going to like those guys, too.

Yeah, go check it out. And even if you don't like us, you might still like that. Even if you hate us and you're like, I want to try something different. They are, you know, they're different enough that you can enjoy them too. Nateland produced Derek Strupe's Netflix special, nostalgic, and it's out now. It's out on Netflix. I would check it periodically to see how it's doing in the top 10. It was always in there.

Got up to number six. All right. So Derek's killing it. You know how I watch Netflix specials of my friends now? I have enough people that I know that have specials on the thing. I watch the first couple minutes, see how it looks, and then I scroll to the end to see if I'm a special thanks. And I'm not on Derek's, but I understand.

How many have you gotten? Greg Warren thanked us by name at the end of his, the first Nate Land special. Okay. You call us out. I opened for John Chris on Chris credited me. And I think you put Nate Land or something that's a special thing. Okay.

On yours. All right. But I know I'm a part of that. Yeah. So I'll take the credit for it. And we're running out of text. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean?

Anyway, go check out nostalgic. Nostalgia? Nostalgia. On Netflix. Nate's greatest average American game show. airs tonight Wednesday on ABC. Check your local listings for that. Now, I was watching last week and the competition, Nate does like these little competitions, not competition, challenges. Yeah. Where they have to guess how well he'll do at it. Yeah. And then somebody guesses the over

under. Under. So far, Nate has went under on every one. He's underperformed. Underperform. Every challenge. The challenge last week was answer a question from kindergarten all the way through senior year of high school. So when was he done? on second grade? First. Wow. Greatest below average America. Yeah.

He got stumped on blue and yellow makes what color? And he said red. No, he did. Is that right? Yeah. He's color boy. Yeah, but what is that? Wait, is he colored one?

Yeah. Oh. But what does that have to do with just knowing the answer? I can't see green by just looking at blue and yellow. I don't know. Maybe it's some sort of Helen Keller type thing where if you can't, You know, if you can't see it, is it real to you? Maybe.

Maybe you're right. He just, food yellow makes white. Gray. That's what it is to me. Wow. Is that how it is when you're colorblind? There's all different kinds. Some just specific colors will look weird.

I don't know if there's a straight up just black and white color. How do we know if any of the colors look the same to us? We asked this question a while ago. I can't remember, but they can... Like red is red to you, but what if your red's different in my red? I almost don't want to know if yours is different because I like the way mine is right now. Okay. Yeah.

You're a cooler red than me, maybe. What if my red's not as cool? Do you think red's a cool color? I like it. You see a red corvette? Does that make you feel good? In the 90s? Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Like a red convertible. Do you ever watch the movie October Sky? I don't think so. You would probably hate it now that I think about it. You know October Sky. Tom Cruise?

No, it's a good guess. Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have seen that. October Sky with Jake Gyllenhaal, and he plays Homer Hickham, who grows up in a coal mining town in West Virginia, and he ends up working at NASA building rockets. Yes. But there's a scene.

For my job that does something for people to. fictional science fiction. Well, he never, he only worked in the coal mine for about a month. And then he left. He left to build rockets and entered the science fair. And he won the National Science Fair with his rocket. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's a real guy.

Homer Hickham. Sounds real, Homer Hickle. It is a real guy. Yeah. Old double age. But there's a scene where they get a little defeated and they're like, why should we even enter the science fair? We got about a one in a five million.

chance of winning. And they're in the woods, you know, just a bunch of hillbillies. And then this dude pulls up with a beautiful woman in a red corvette. And he asked them for directions and they drive away. And it was like just seeing that, they were like, oh, they got inspired to kind of become more. But the color red was such a part. Anyway, the redness of it. Yeah. Like in the Matrix. Isn't it the woman in the red dress? And the red pill. Yeah. If you watch an M. Night Shyamla on, movie. Anybody wearing red is evil. It's like an evil

color to them. Okay. Every one? If you watch like the Sixth Sense especially, anytime there's the bright red, do you remember the woman in the six cents? Tangent here, sorry if anybody hasn't seen the movie. The mom that's slowly killing her daughter in the Sixth Sense. Remember if she's poisoning, Misha Barton's her daughter?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She, at their funeral, she's wearing a bright red dress at their funeral. Well, I would think wearing black. Bright red at a funeral makes you evil. That's for sure. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

There was one movie where, I forgot what it's called, where they had to hide the color red because the monsters like came out. That was another Mnuchama movie, The Village. The Village, yes. Yeah, when they said the color red would attract the beast that lives in the forest. Yeah. Do you know that movie? I don't think so.

I think you would agree with what they were actually trying to go for there. Okay. The Village? Yeah. I'll check out. You would like the Village actually. All right. Yeah.

I'll check that out. You would want to live there. Okay. I think. I'll check it out. Yeah. I do want to live in a village. But you want to be king of the village, right?

Yeah. Well, for sure. You're going to be the village people. Yeah. You say it looked like I could be? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I got one more Nateland news here. Yeah. Dusty's memoir. We're having a good time. All right. Yeah. We're going to booker.

copy they're going to bring there. How about that? Is that what they call that? A memoir? I don't know why. Here it is. We call them. Just call it a book. Yeah, just called it. Is it a collection of essays or is it? What is it? Well, this is not really it, but I'll read you a little piece from it. Okay, let's see. Growing pains. How about this? The good times continued to roll for golf, the PGA tour, IMG, and me. This is not the book. This is just a cover. But. book will be out in November. Go ahead and get yourself out. All right. Go ahead and order it pre-sale, and that's what it'll look like.

But that's not what it'll... That's not the book. It'll read like. When I hear memoir, I think there's going to be a whole chapter on some... A tell-all. Yeah, some transgressions in your life. If you confess some things in there that you've never talked about publicly? You're kind of an open book.

I did, actually, though. I've saved a good part of my life that I don't talk about too much for the book. Okay. It's going to be fine. I can't wait. You guys probably know about it. All right. But I've never shared it, though, on a podcast,

anything publicly about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's some fun stuff. All right. It's a good book. I'm looking forward to. It's a good book. Should we get in these comments?

Let's do it. I wouldn't write a bad book. No, I don't think you would. I wouldn't put it out. I don't think you would either. Well, let us decide if it's good or not. Okay. You guys read?

You guys readers? Occasionally I'll read a book. Yeah. My wife's always reading a book. She's always in the middle of a book. As soon as that book's over, another one started. She finishes them. All the time.

She'll read 300 a year. Wow. Maybe not that many, but a lot. My wife reads a lot too. And, yeah, and I'm not as into it. Really? Yeah. Well, that's a shocker.

I like writing them. I like a video. I like a video. Or is there going to be a video counter? part to this. Yeah, I hope to get that. Somebody sends me an article. I go, can you send it in a video? Can you get this down to a three-minute TikTok for me? Because that's how I'm going to take it in. I've always felt that about a book that there's already been a movie about it. Like, why would I just watch the movie? Yeah. But you read the Harry Potter's, right? Doesn't the book usually come first?

It does, but sometimes they'll say, go read so-and-so, and they've already made a movie about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I'll just watch the movie. movie for now. Yeah. And if I like that, I'll read the book. Yeah. Or just be satisfied with the movie. You just put subtitles on. Yeah. It's basically reading the book. I'll do it at the same time. Did you read the book? Well, I did have the subtitles on. Have you ever checked your bank statement and realized you were paying for something you completely forgot about? All the time. I know I have. I had one of those moments recently where I noticed a couple of subscriptions still charging me every month. Stuff I hadn't used in forever.

What were they? Well, let's not get into it. But that's when I started using rocket money. It showed me exactly where my money was going, all in one place. And it immediately flags subscriptions I wasn't using anymore. That's what I'm talking about. Being able to cancel unwanted subscriptions right inside the app with just a few taps saved me time and stop those charges from quietly draining my account. Oh, man, you know, I just want to show the Rocket Money app and just what's going on with that. Great UI. Yeah, exactly. What's UI? User interface. Yeah, and that's it right there. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. A lot of people don't

have a savings, so you need to grow it. You got to grow that thing. One of the things I like is how the app consolidates checking, savings, loans, and investments into a single dashboard to give users a clear view of their financial picture. Let Rocket Money help you finance goals faster. Join rocketmoney.com slash Nate. That's rocketmoney.com slash Nate. Rocketmoney.com slash Nate. Who wants to read comments? One of y'all too.

All right. I'll read them. I got new headphones. I just pulled it out. There it is. Okay. We do have new headphones, me and Aaron, if you guys haven't noticed. Oh, I didn't notice. And I'm really enjoying it.

The headphone over the hat was killing me. And I've been doing it for, you know, several years. I just like it for other reasons. Just my head is big and it hurts after a while. Okay. It just gets clamped on there. And your headphones broke, and that's why we had to get them. No, that's it didn't break.

You thought your head was hurting. The band on the headphone was just max capacity. Do they feel good? They feel great, man. Yeah, well, good. They look bad on you, but I'm glad they're good. No, I think it's a sharp thing. Does it look bad on me?

You can't even tell I'm wearing it. Yeah, your hair covers yours up. Yeah. I think it's a sharp look. What are you talking about? Okay. It's about time this podcast, saw my ears. Okay.

Montana comments. All the comments come from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple podcast reviews, and mail at natelandpodcast.com. Or if you buy merch from any of us on Square, you can leave it in a comment on the Square app. And that'll expedite it to the... the top of the lung. Can we get that going? No. No, no, no, no. I prefer Venmo payments. Okay, yeah, Venmo at Real Aaron Weber, with your comment. The higher the money, it's going to be at the very top, the comment. Absolutely. Just like this first one. This comes from Aaron Cornwell. Please don't do that, by the way. I was kidding.

Yeah. I'm not going to say no. But Aaron Cornwell, only five episodes in, and this is already my favorite podcast of all time. Keep up the great work, guys. That's great. Favorite. I appreciate that. Any podcast or favorite of the five? I don't know.

She mean the episode? It's her favorite episode or is her favorite podcast? I'm going to just lean on the positives and say, podcast of all time. Yeah. But that's what you're saying. Like, she's not talking about the episode. She's talking about this is my favorite podcast.

With only five episodes. And I'll say, Aaron, just prepare. There's going to be dips. Yeah. Right? It's only up. from here. Yeah, yeah, well.

I'm speaking to this Aaron and this Aaron. Okay. Okay, Angie Sickler. That's a great name. Sickler. You know Ryan Sickler? You ever do his podcast? I do know Ryan Sickler.

Yeah. He's the man. I have done his podcast, yeah. Fun fact about Montana, up until 1999, the speed limit signs along the highways simply read, drive what is wise and prudent. That's incredible. Meaning you couldn't get a speeding ticket. on highways until 1999.

It was crazy but fun. Wow. I love that. It's still 75. On the highway from Bout to, or from Billings to Bute, 75. But it used to be just feel it out. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's the time.

I love it. I go 55. I was driving on the interstate this weekend. I'm going 80. I'm getting passed by people. Yeah. And so everybody's speeding out here. I know.

I think I love it. Whenever I see police pulling people over for speeding these days, I go, this town must have no crime. You're wasting resources on somebody getting to work faster. Trying to stimulate the economy. Manda Arnold. Oh, Manda. Just Manda.

I guess it's probably a Manda, I was thinking, but they just go by Manda. Manda, Manda, Manda, Manda Show. Manda Show. Amanda Binds. What's the thing about Amanda? Bring in the dancing, Lola. Lobstice. Sorry, I don't know what I'm talking about. Now, this is gold, dude. Keep going. After a very long week and an even longer day spent mostly at the ER with my 91-year-old

grandfather watching Aaron get teased about reading a book about General Custer thinking it would be about pie, and then Dusty buying Brian's lie about his venue being haunted made me literally laugh out loud. That's great. It's good to know. Some things never change. Thanks so much for giving all of us a place to go and decompress at the end of a rough day. It means more than you know. And that's why we do it and the money. But, thank you, man. Now, that is nice. And I hope your grandfather's okay. He's 91 in the ER. That sounds serious. I feel like you really just glazed over that or glossed over that. Glossed.

Yeah. Glazed would be like highlighting it. Well, she mentioned a lot about them, but I cut that part out. Okay. Let's try to get to the stuff about us. Why would I put in a comment

of details about her grandfather? That's true, though. It's already was too long. Yeah. Amanda should wrap it up like she did her name. You know what I mean? Simplified it. Yeah, yeah.

Let's trim the edges. I don't care about your grandfather. Just get to the stuff about us. Okay. family. This is coming from the whole family here. How can Aaron be a true Braves fan and not know who Bob Horner is? I was born in the 21st century, the end of it. I'm kidding. I know. I know Bob Horner. Sometimes it's fun to act like you don't know stuff. And I wasn't thinking. My mind wasn't in Braves mode at the time. Also, I don't really remember this happening. I don't know who

Bob Horner is, and I'm guessing we talked about it on the podcast. But I don't know who that is. You're all your retro Braves. Oh, okay. And you said I looked like Bob Horner. And then I said he looked like Chick Correa. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right, good. Yeah. I didn't know who either of those guys were. Shout out to the Smith family. They're a great family. If that's the family I'm thinking of. I think they make sausage. Not the, not the guys I'm talking about. Maybe these guys do. Okay. All right. Here we go. Jessica Parker. I believe Jessica Parker is friend of mine. I also went to high school with a Jessica Parker. Also, I'm a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker. Oh, yeah. Brian and Dusty Duet should be a new part of each episode. The

Legend of Woolly Swamp was great. And I'm going to veto that right off the top. It was good, though. I'm be honest with you. I got a lot of messages about that video. Did you really? Yeah, because I got a lot of country music fan, friends, and gosh, I was just chatting with a guy about that life. It stimulated a whole a whole conversation about how great Charlie Daniels was. Oh, that's nice. Let's try to do that once every few months. And me and my friend were sending each other

voice memo texts of different Charlie Daniels songs. That's fun. Yeah. Stoker Ace, you know that one? Stroker Ace was born to race. He had a mean streak, 10 feet wide. You don't know that one? My bank is... Come on, man. No, I know it. Yeah, I know it.

There was a movie Stoker's Ace. Yeah. Bert Reynolds. Yeah. Why listen to the song when you can watch the movie? No, I listen. My bank is truest. And every time I go online, I say, call the truest on the telephone.

Send them a letter in the mail. Tell I'm hung up in. It's tough to do at Regents. Well, thank you, Jessica. Jessica Parker, yeah. Matt Smith. You all forgot to mention Big City by Merrill Haggard. Also appreciate the Charlie Daniels references.

He called them Talking Blues. Another song where he did that was, Every time I see him. Every time I see him, he just barely getting by, something like that. I don't know that one as well. But Big City by Merle Haggard is great.

It is great. Turn me loose and set me free. Somewhere in the middle of Montana, give me all I've got coming for me. That's a great. Aaron. And keep your retirement and your so-called social security. Okay.

I believe in that too. All right. So thank you for those. That's Montana comments. I feel like we lost a little steam on these singing. Big City, turn me loose and set me free. All right, here we go. Bryce Dorn.

This is air travel comments, the episode with Fiona Colley. So many laughs this episode, and what a perfect first guest. I would like to emphasize Aaron's natural ability for impressions. Oh. He always amazes me, and his turkey was spot on. I would like to request the crew to give their best animal impressions. That's so funny. Yeah, I do impressions.

Who do you do? Trump, Obama. No, no, no, no. Just a turkey. Did you do a turkey? I don't remember doing it. I don't even remember that either. Can you do a turkey now for us, though?

I thought that. You'd be like, that turkey's sick. Don't shoot that turkey. You get the whole family sick on that thing. Skipping Thanksgiving this year. It's got rabies. That thing's joking. It's a rabid turkey.

Got to hit by a car. It was right on it to die on its own. Something like that. Yeah, that's good. All right. I got to tell you, I was in Lexington. The hotel is right next to. comedy off-Broadway. Love that hotel. It's about a hundred yards from the club, right?

Love that hotel. In between the hotel and the club is a pond populated by aggressive geese. And they got two white swans that are kind of the alpha males and they kind of control things. Yeah. And they're aggressive and they wait by the door. And there are signs in the hotel. Warning, geese are aggressive. We need to deal with them all weekend. Wow. They'll run right up to you. Be like, what you got? We found the strategy we ended up doing was we got goldfish from the bar. Goldfish, the snack. Yeah, yeah. Not the real thing.

We didn't reach into their fish tank in the lobby. We got goldfish and just kind of had to, like, throw it at them just to get to the club. I love that. I like an obstacle course. Terrified of geese. Yeah. They are. I've been chased by a goose before.

Exactly. I mean, they're scared. Birds scare me. I always Uber to the club. Do you Uber there from the hotel? You can see it. It's so close to it. You can see it out your window.

I think it's like the same complex. It is. But you do have to go down and you kind of have to cut through that outdoor restaurant. Kind of. It's not a straight line. If it's in the summer, there will be tables out there eating. It's not a straight line, but it's all downhill. Not on the way back.

On the way back. That's what I take it over. Uber back to the hotel. Yeah, because it's nighttime, too. Yeah, exactly. He's scary. Those geese out there. Where are you headed right there?

Yeah. Okay, Clueetta. I like that name. Clue Edda. Clue is a great name. Yeah, Clue. Clue in. Dusty playing airplane with sound effects, totally awesome.

I guarantee he's an awesome father. My dad would play with us kids and have sound effects and do different voices with puppets, and I loved it. God bless you, Dusty. You are such. a joy to watch. Wow. Wow. This comment would have almost been better had one of you read it to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you read it in that insincere voice. Yeah. So when it's a nice compliment about you, I appreciate it. I do play with my kids, but my kids love to go, they go talk, they'll bring up a,

you know, like a ninja turtle and they'll go talk for this guy. Oh, that's fun. And I go, get out of here. Now, I do talk. I go, get out of here. I'm working. But I'm just on Instagram. Go get your mom to do it. Yeah, I do say that. Hannah is actually better at playing with toys with the kids. Really? She used to do improv, like kid improv.

Oh, it's all just a big scene. Yeah. I'm better. I'm pretty good at it. But other day we're playing, and she's like, here, you take, I'll have mommy, duck or whatever, you take daddy and have him talk. And I said something, she said, no, daddy's would have a deeper voice. Oh.

I was just talking to my normal voice. Gosh. So that hurt a little bit. You go, you know, I'm your dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay Mill. Jay Mill. I think if Helen Keller would have had Fiona's mom, her scam wouldn't have lasted that long.

I think that's spot on. That is spot on. Jay Mill. That's spot on. Jeff Goodell. I am 6'4 and near 3. hundred pounds. Take it easy, Jeff.

Most public stalls are not meant for us. I am sure Aaron can relate. Jeez. I don't think he's talking about his height here. So I routinely use the larger handicap stall for no other reason than comfort. In my 57 years, I have never exited a stall to find a handicap user waiting for me. Even if I did, I feel being handicapped does not eliminate you from having to wait for a stall. I agree with that, but I think the scenario she was talking about was it was an empty

bathroom and the only one that was occupied was somebody was in the handicaps. Yeah, also, Jeff, what a handicap, what person is waiting outside for a six, four, three hundred pound 57 year old man? You say, you let that guy take it. You go, I'll pee my pants. Well, you don't know how big the guy is through this. You can see it through that crowd. He can hear the toilet struggling. He looks 57. Yeah.

He's singing old-timey songs in there. He remembers when horse with no name came out. Yeah, what's he's singing, bread? That guy's in those 50s. Bread's good. You like bread? I love bread. I do too.

It's my mom's favorite band. I don't love bread. We had the album, The Best of Bread. Yeah. I have that album. Is this like General Custer Booky Bob? No, no, I knew it was a fan. Guitar Man?

Oh, Guitar Man, Diary. Dusty, I made a funny joke, and you kind of shut it down there. People tell me I do that all the time. Yeah. All right. Diary. And Aubrey, that's a good one, too. Aubrey's a great song.

Diary might be the saddest song of all the time. You know the song Diary by Bread? I don't think so. this guy finds it's his own fault though well hold on it's the guy we find the plot of it this guy's in love with this girl i found a diary and he finds a diary from the girl that he's in love with and he starts reading it this goes well and he's like oh my god she's in love with me too so he's flipping through it and he starts imagining this life that they're going to have together he's i can't believe this woman is also in love with me i'm in love with her and then it gets to the end and he realizes it's about somebody

else. And so then his conclusion at the end is, well, this whole life that I've imagined for the two of us, I hope you now get to have that with that guy. And that's the kind of, that's the kind of weak man that would be reading a woman's diary in the first place. Yeah, it is an invasion of her privacy too. Yeah, you're so weak, you're reading her diary. And then at the end, you're like, well, I hope you have a good life. It's like, why don't you step up your game? I would read her diary, but I would never assume it's about me. I'm like, I want to see who she's into so I can get that guy out of the picture. You never read the diary.

Okay. Come on, guys. Oh. Oh, our old pal. Nancy Johnson. Nancy Johnson. I went on the Nate Land Cruise and I fell down the steps at the Stardust Theater and ended up having to come home with a boot on. When I got to the airport, they made it very difficult for me to get through security.

I had to take my boot off and stand up in the scanner. That seems crazy. They scanned me with a bar and patted me down. They never would tell me why. Finally, they just said, go on through. Well, this started off funny and not to laugh at you falling down the steps, but that is funny. And then it. We also, we all saw you on the cruise. We knew about it. And you're our best friend. Yeah. But knowing how much I dislike the TSA, this enrages me. And I'm sorry you had to go through that, Nancy. Because when I think about someone causing trouble on a plane, I always think of Nancy Johnson.

Yep. I always think if Nancy gets on this plane, there's a risk it's going to get hijacked. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm glad they did it. Yeah. Take that boot off and then not give it back. Yeah, good work, boys.

I hope you're doing better, Nancy. Yeah, me too. Elliot Carey. Dusty is once again onto something with the wired headphones. Look at LeBron James and other athletes who can afford all the new tech but are choosing wired headphones. They know something we don't. And that is true because this is why, let me tell you. You look to LeBron James for stuff like that?

Every time because LeBron James has read the first book, first page of every book. book. And there's video evidence of that. And that's my kind of reading. I don't know if you're not about there. Well, LeBron's been filmed several times reading a book while given an interview. And every time he's on like page one. Oh, really? I've never seen that. The best clip is he has Malcolm X's biography.

And they go, once you tell us a little bit about the book, he goes, he was an amazing man. A lot of the stuff he talked about, you know, still relevant today. He was just an amazing man. Yeah. And you're like, all right, well, give us one thing. And if you can get all that from page one, that's a smart guy. Yeah, that is good.

Yeah. He's, I think I get it. I think I get the gist. Yeah. But this is, listen. Do you remember what he said his favorite movie was The Godfather? And they go, what's your favorite scene? He goes, ah, man, there's just too many, man.

It's too many good. It's a lot of good scenes. And they go, watch you just name one. Ah, man, it's not really up to me. They're all good. I got to agree with him again. I mean, it's a good movie, and it's long. You know, to narrow it down, it's like asking what your favorite song is.

I mean, who can do it? Well, you do it all the time. Well, I got so many. LeBron, make a top five list. Yeah, okay. Well, I think if they give him some prep time and let him come back, I think he could do a top five. There was an episode of Seinfeld where George joined a book club,

and they were supposed to read Breakfast at Tiffany's, and he didn't read it, but then he found out there's a movie. So they're like, I'm just going to go and rent the movie before our meeting, but the movie's checked out at the video store. So when the cashier turns around, he flips around to see the address of who checked out the movie and goes to their house and asks if he can watch the movie with them. It's just like a father and daughter. I remember that episode. That's so funny.

Yeah. It's just a plot that makes zero sense now. But it did then. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, going to the video store and a movie you want to see already been checked out was a major issue. It was. And then you would get something else.

that you didn't even want to see and then it would end up being good. But if you heard some thumps in the drop box, I mean, people would linger around the drop box. Waiting for somebody to drop off. Yeah. Yeah. Twelve Angry Men or whatever you were on.

Shawshank Redemption, thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. Some thumps in the drop box. Yeah. All right. But guys, I'm saying, let me tell you about the wired headphones, though.

Oh, yeah, I want to hear about it. Because when you talk on the phone... It's like I'd read. Well, you guys, you know, you wouldn't let me do it. it. Go ahead. But when you talk on your phone, signals are coming into this phone from somewhere, right? And then you hold that to your head, now it's hitting your head. Right, right.

So if you're using wired headphones, now your phone's down here and it's just transmitting through here. It's just hitting your knees. Yes, exactly. But if you're using Bluetooth, all the signal going to the phone going right to your ear. So you don't use Bluetooth ever? Never, not anymore. Not even in your car or anything? Well, I do use it in the car.

So, yeah, you're getting destroyed. I'm not saying you can escape it. Right. But don't add too. There's a 5G tower right outside this club. Yeah. And I won't live around them. I'll move.

You build a 5G tower in my house, I'll move. Well, they put one up by that Dollar General right there, and Dollar General closed pretty quickly. Yeah. Now it's a guitar shop right there. Yeah. Some of the strings are going to start. Dollar General gets it. I think it went out of business.

Well, now we know why. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Let's see. For real, though, when I was looking for houses, I would go to a neighborhood. And if they had those up, I'd go, I don't want to live right here. Yeah, I get it. A cell tower?

Yeah. A 5G time. I don't know that it's 5G. I don't know that it's doing anything. You can feel it. But it seems, it just doesn't feel right. You can feel it radiating. Body a little bit.

I'm not into it. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? There is some amount of radiation in the phones. Sure.

And what's a good amount for you? How much radiation do you like to take it? I think the second I feel it, that's when I'm out. We got some packages. Brian, you want to set up what's going on? Yeah. It's Adrian's birthday. Happy birthday, Adrian.

Is it really? Oh, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Wow. So we got him a cake? Was there a cake? No, these are presents for him, but we're going to open them. All right.

Give me one with some cake. Yeah. I might need your weapon here in a second. We got some package. These are the producers. Well, what are... These are the producers got us these. Oh, yeah.

The producers got us these. These are not Adrian's birthday gifts, but happy birthday, Adrian, by the way. I'm jealous of your perfect hair and... Adrian's Jack, too. I know he is. I was about to say that, but I didn't want to sound... All right, let me go first.

Okay. Because I have no idea. Now, what are, but these are designed to kind of get the ball rolling. This week's episode is about grocery stores. Grocery stores. And I've got, uh... What have I got to here, Tristan? Thank you.

Which one is that? Safe quick. Safe quick. And then... So that's a... That is a pin that Safeway used to give out. I can't open it. They've worn milestones of five years, ten years, 15 years, employment.

Safeway's one of the first grocery stores. So they would give this to... They would give this to employees? Need a knife, Brian. Appreciation for hard work. Nah. I think I'm good. Thank you.

I've lost interest. Okay. We're off to the race. It's a little plastic container. You need to work it while you're talking? These are employees of Safeway would get these for one year of service, like three years, five years of service. I like that. I like to see, like my server.

I like to see how long. I like to know if who I'm talking to has any power or can do whatever. Yeah. You need them to do. That's pretty cool. Right there, that's a five-year Safeway pin right there, five years of service to a Safeway. One of the first grocery stores in America. Yeah, one of the, it was.

It was one of the first. You know, whenever I've worked for a company for five years and they give me something like that, I really feel appreciated. Wow, a pin. And I still got to pay for my uniform? Yeah, all right, cool. I hope it's part of a package of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, they give you a little slice of sheetcake or something like that. Or maybe some of the cinnamon buns that went bad in the bakery. They go. Now, that's a bonus. in them. Five years. That's pretty cool. That is cool. What do you have? I have. Tristan, maybe you can tell me a little bit about it. This is an old... Yeah, it's a stamp saver. This is a stamp saver. Brian, you grew up on these. What are these do? Well, I don't know. Well, I think you get... I don't know either. It says you can fill any page in this book with... I don't even know what the... What are these stamps? So you could... There's stamps that you can collect from grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores. And you'd save them up to redeem merchandise at those places.

Whoa. Kind of like if you got a card punched, if you ever a certain amount, then you would get something. So this is just like collecting stamps, I guess. Okay, and then you redeem them for something, free groceries or something like that? Yeah, different types of merchandise.

This was done in the 50s through 70s. Through the 70s. Wow. So this is with top value stamps, you choose from a bigger selection of gifts. Every year, top value works harder to bring you more gifts and more desirable gifts than any other stamp plan.

So all these places would have a stamp plan like this. And this was like before everything was digitized. This was their kind of reward program. Back in the good old days. Back in the good old days. It doesn't have the year on this. 1966. Wow.

That's when my granddad died. All right. I'm telling you. He died, though. It's probably his book. Just got it. Oh, that's cool. All right.

And then I got it. Yeah, we had these grocery stores a lot in South Carolina. He's a pigly-wiggly. All right. I'm big on the pig. And look at that. Is that what they would say? A little meat there.

I'm big on the pig? Big on the pig. If you didn't know, Pigley-Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store. Wow. You had to ask a clerk to hand you your items and he would shop for you. We've started in Memphis. Whoa. Yeah, Memphis, 1916.

So before that, a grocery store is you'd walk up and there's a guy behind a counter and he would grab what you wanted. A pig. Exactly. A humanoid like pig. Yeah. Yeah. If you're listening, Dusty's holding the silence, is pickly-wiggly, have it all.

Dusty's promoting pork. No, no, that's beef there. No, you would never kill and eat that guy. No, the pig is serving your beef because even the pig knows. Yeah, he's saying, eat more beef like the chick filet. Exactly. You ever see barbecue restaurants where they have a pig with a knife and fork out there? Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's disgusting. Yeah. Rick Roberts is a joke about that. Does he? Yeah. Well, mine's not a job. His joke is you never drive by a Chinese restaurant

and see a kitten on the sign. Oh, geez. Come on, Rick. You're going to get Rick canceled on that. That's a wild. That's really cool. I'd like, yeah, just keep that one. That is cool.

We got to hang that up. Put that over. I was going to say put it over a frame picture Brian, we don't have one yet in this story. But we will when the special comes out. Have you thought of, hold on this? Come on, I lost you there. I was just trying.

Brian, come back. Come back and play with it. There is a framed picture of Brian right here, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, put it over that. Have you thought? I don't know why you're looking at them, and I. Maybe some support. Some help?

I just said there's a framed picture of Brian right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One where they call me by different B names? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was more care and detail that went into that picture than any picture on this wall. I totally agree. Yeah. Now, Brian, have you thought of a name for the special yet? Is that something that you'll, you know, none of these things are the priority, obviously. We talked about what you're wearing and all that kind of stuff. But you always think about it a little in the back area. A little bit. I mean, I feel like you asked me that last week. And I said, we're having a good time. But I don't think that's what it'll be called. I think you should.

She did we're having a bad time. Having a breakfast time. That doesn't even make sense. That's a sentence. Well, you know, everybody's got to have some breakfast time at some time. Yeah. You do. Embassy sweets, by the way.

Great breakfast. Almlets? Yeah, they got an omelet station. They got all kinds of stuff. You know what I like about that embassy suites? It almost feels like a motel in a way because the door, like, Like the way the doors are on the inside. So it's obviously not a motel. It's a very nice place. But inside, the doors are like, it's so open. The doors are like on the outside. It's the way there's a lot of those NBC suites are where it's like the lobby goes all the way up to the top of the.

I'm a big fan because you can sit in your room and look out the window at people passing by. Every time I've been there, and this weekend was no exception, I didn't do any of that. But every time I've been there, there's been some kind of youth sports travel ball team there. And these dads, they're always just like chilling out in the outside of your room on one of the lobbies on the floor being like, man, Cooper didn't have it today, man. Cooper did not have it today, man. He's got to get that fastball under control. These kids are like nine. Yeah.

It's pretty crazy. Yeah, every time you go down the elevator, there's like 20 kids piling on door. into some event. We were talking about it. Jay Flake was with me. He was on the, he was on Nate Land. That's a show that's not related to this one at all. But he was an umpire.

He was telling me he had a really funny, uh, some guy kept yelling at him that he was making bad calls. And he said he turned around. He goes, hey man, we need people like you. He goes, no, I'm serious. If you go to T-S-S-WA dot, dot org, you can sign up. We need people like you. He kept saying to the guy because the guy was yelling the whole game.

Bad call, bad call. bad call. He goes, hey, man, we need people. That was a good call you made. Oh. As if you say, you could sign that to be a referee or an umpire? It was just, he just kept saying like, dude, great, you're so good at this. You should be an umpire. I thought it was such a funny way to handle it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need people like you, man. What if that guy got hired and then Jay Flay got fired? Well, that would have backfired pretty hard. And then Jay could go and sit in the bleachers and go, Oh, bad call.

Yeah, because that's happened to me. I've told somebody in the audience like, hey, dude, talking, you want to try to say something funny? And then he'll say something much funnier. He gives a huge laugh from the audience. I'm like, well, shut up. Sorry, I asked. That's why I don't like crowd work. Well, today.

Yeah, let me just say that before you get started, I want to set this up. Next week, Dusty's going to lead the topic discussion about something near and dear to his heart. We're giving Brian a break. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Did you know this was happening? I did know, but I hearing it.

Now it's real. Yeah. A little pit in my stomach. And this week, you're leading the topic about something near and dear to your heart. Grocery stores. Take it away, Aaron. We're talking about grocery stores. which was covered on Nate Land,

but I think we can attack it from a different thing. All right. I think we all like grocery stores. I love them. We love them. I like thinking about them. I like talking about it. I love the machinery of a grocery store.

Just the way it operates. Not like the forklift. Well, I like all that, too. Yeah. I've never operated a forklift, but I feel like I'd be good at it. I think so, too.

You see those guys that are that. That. You got a real forklift body. You can get picked up by one or operate one. But do you see those guys that can like unscrew a bottle cap with the corner of a forklift? There are guys that are that precise with it. I feel like I could maybe get to that level. It would be like remote control.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how grocery stores operate. I saw this picture at a marketing class in college. And if you're listening, I'll describe it. It's an overhead shot of a grocery store looking down onto the shelves. Just an overwhelming amount of products on here. All different companies, skews, colors, thousands of things competing for your attention. I'm going to admit something here.

When you showed that picture, I thought this was like a magazine stand with a lot of small things like gum. I did too. And stuff like that for sale. Oh, because you, okay. But once you describe it, yeah. Yeah, it comes to life. Yeah. Then we get the pasta aisle right there in the front.

I think this is like dog food here and the front of the picture. But it's just- Where'd you take this at? I didn't take this picture. It's out my bedroom window right here. I see a picture like this and you think all of these different products, they want you to buy their thing, right? But how do you stand out in something this crowded?

There's so much going on. You're so overly stimulate. The grocery store is a battlefield for your attention and your eyeballs and your money, right? So I always think when you're in a grocery store, you're being poked and prodded and manipulated in all these different ways to try to get you to do what they want you to do. So if you think about it like that, they're very interesting. So what I want to do today is just, go ahead. I sold pesticides for a long time. So you spent a lot of time in stores like this.

Yeah, doing this stuff. Yeah, getting up there. I was going to say I learned some terms from Dusty and Greg Warren. Like, in caps? Yeah. Right. I didn't even know what that was. Clip strips.

Yeah. Well, I want to get, I want to lean on your expertise and your stuff as we walk through this. All right. What I want to do is just walk through metaphorically a trip to the grocery store. All right. I'm in. And talk about every step along the way. She had some popcorn.

Get it at the grocery store. Yeah. How often do you guys go to a grocery store? How often do you think you go? I go about once a week. Once a week. Yeah. Average American, once every 4.7 days.

Wow. So a little over once a week. Yeah, you know, I'm married. So my wife goes, you know, probably more than I do now, but also on the road. I might hit the grocery store on the road. I mean, I love walking in a grocery store. Are you efficient when you go in there? Are you in and out, or do you think that you like to meander?

I depends, but I can be a bit of a meander. I can be a bit of a meanderer. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, what about you, Brian? I go, my wife writes a list down. She's really good about making list as we go, like for stuff that we need, where I always just say, oh, I need to remember to get so-and-so. And then I get to the store and I'm like, what was it I needed?

She's really good at list. I get to the store. I'm the main grocery shopping. Okay. Okay. And I get to the store and then I look at the list to see how long it is to help me determine if I'm going to do a buggy, a card. Right. Or we're going to get to that. You're jumping way ahead in the process.

All right. All right. By the way, 75% of people walk in the store with a list. Wow. Three out of four people walk in with a plant, but almost everybody ends up grabbing more things than was on their list. So that means whatever system they're using, it's working. Yeah. Impulse purchases are almost unavoidable. You're always going to grab something. Aren't you supposed to not go in on an empty stomach? That's what they say. You're always going to spend more if you go on when you're hungry, whether you realize it or not. Yeah.

So you should go in with it. If you want to avoid spending more than you planned on, go in completely full. Hit a buffet before. Sometimes you go in, you know, you maybe grab a little box of chicken on the way. You know, you get a little box of chicken. Have something to eat while you're walking through the grocery store. Hawaiian rolls? Yep.

Just take the bag up there and go, hey, please while I was shopping. I've scanned an empty bag before. I totally done. I scanned an empty bag and an empty, like, Diet Coke. Yeah. I go. I had it while I was walking out. That's all you had.

Average. He just didn't do it. I hate it walking to the register. He went in there to cool off. The average American, the average length of a grocery store trip for Americans 40 minutes. Wow. Which feels long to me.

I'm much faster. But I think a lot of people are spending time in there. Can you guess the peak time, the most busy time of the week and the day for grocery stores across America? I would say Saturday morning. Saturday is right. Saturday at one o'clock is typically the busiest time. I didn't even get to guess, but I would have said Friday at five. And then the family of four in America spends on average a thousand dollars a month on grocery. So the point being, billions and billions of dollars are at stake here. So almost nothing happens by accident in a grocery store. Everything is by design, starting at the very beginning. So you guys, just, I'm based on, I know where we live, you guys all drive to the grocery store. Is that correct? Yeah. 88% of Americans drive to the grocery stores.

Average distance, four miles. So we're all driving there, which means your first step is going to be finding a parking spot. Yeah. Now, where do you guys get your groceries from usually? I'm a Kroger guy. I used to be Kroger. My Kroger just got torn down. Oh, man.

That was a good Kroger, too. No. It wasn't a murder Kroger? Belmead's not a murder Kroger. No, I used to live near the murder Kroger. Really? Yeah. You know what?

A lot of cities have a murder Kroger. Atlanta does? Yeah. So whatever the bad Kroger is in your town, it gets labeled the murder Kroger. It's not even that good of a turn of phrase, too. It doesn't even really wrong. I do think people are getting killed there, though. I mean, look, I think they earned the name.

I just wish it was a little clever, more clever. But now I go to Publix. Publix is a good spot. I go to Publix too. Publix is where I go in Hermitage and Mount Jewett. I'll hit them both. I like to switch it up. But you know what? I like, I like Trader Joe's.

A lot goes into the parking lots. Trader Joe's is famous. It's famous for having notoriously small parking lots. That one in the west side, or wherever by by. It's on the west. That's such a bad parking lot. It is a bad parking lot. But a lot of that is intentional the way that they've set up. Typically, Trader Joe's are in densely populated urban areas. They're like in the city. So they don't really have the space or it's super expensive to have large parking lots. But also the Trader Joe's, you know, the stores themselves are super small. So if they have a small parking lot, that will kind of create customers going in at the right level of efficiency. And it looks. And if it looks busy, you don't want to empty parking lot going there. There's nobody. That's like a line in a restaurant. Every time, do you want? You try by Trader Joe's. You're like, it's popping out there.

What has happened? Especially Columbus, Ohio, during COVID. They made people wait outside. There was a line. They were controlling how many people were in the store at once. Dusty and I are walking to the club. Dusty walks out. He goes, oh, geez.

Just seen them lined up outside there. With their mask on. Now, what's the opposite of that? You know, Walmart parking lot, enormous. Yes. Yeah. Now, Walmart has designed all their parking lots very intentionally where you can always see the store from where you're parked. Now, what they've done is determined that people will not complain about how far away they had to park from the store as long as they could see it the whole time.

It creates the illusion of, I'm very close to it. So Walmart, they're all designed. If you look at the layout of them, they're all kind of set up where the store is always visible. I'm trying to think of a grocery store, though, that I couldn't see it. Well, even places like if something's in a city and you have to park like around the corner, it might be a shorter distance than if you were at the back of a Walmart parking lot, but it feels like, wow, what an inconvenient. I'm like around the corner from it.

Yeah, I don't want to go out back. Yeah, why would you? Costco, well, I all love Costco. Costco is not really, it's not my daily or like go-to, but I'll go every once in a world. Love Costco. To get stuff. You know the Costco parking lots, they have the extra wide spaces. in the parking lots. Have you noticed that? I have not. Yep. They got a little, like the line in

between spots is like two or three feet wide. And what that does is that encourages you to, oh, dude, let's stock up, let's load this car full of stuff. Yeah. Very easily open all the doors and just start cramming stuff in the car. Yeah. And plus, larger people can go. 100%. Look, I appreciate it. Yeah. You know, if you bang your door into somebody else's car in the Costco parking lot, you meant to do it. Yeah. I don't want to get ahead of you. No, no, go ahead. When you guys go, what's your parking strategy?

Are you going to look for the closest space to the door, or are you going to look for some little room on each side? I don't mind a little bit of a, I'll park in the back. I like empty space on either side of me, especially if I have the baby with me in the car seat. That complicates everything. But I want to park straight in front of the door. I'm going to walk in. So whatever that row is, I'll go in the back of that. I don't know why.

I don't even think that's even makes sense. I like to try to park near the buggy corral. Okay, right next to it. Because if there's a buggy in there and get my kid out. You call it a buggy, huh? Yeah. Interesting. I get my kid out, put them right in the buggy, put them both in there,

and then go in, and Costco gets that side-by-side kid seating. Right. And then I can, when I get done, take the kids out, load them in, push the buggy in. Love it. Be done. You don't call it buggy? I call a shopping cart. Oh, you do.

But I know what you mean when you say buggy. It's just kind of interesting. I know them both. I think I say buggy. It feels Amish. me. Yeah. Yeah. I know they're called buggies too. Yeah, well, I don't have a horse pulling it, but so you walk in, you grab a shopping cart. It's the first thing you do, right? Yes. Would it surprise you, Dusty, that over the last 20 years, shopping carts have doubled in size. Wow. They've

doubled in the last 20 years. Wow, that is surprising. Now, what that's done is it's caused a 40% increase in spending on average. Because the way your mind works is that you want to want to fill that shopping cart up. The larger the card is, the more permission you give yourself to buy more stuff. And he kind of looks stupid with a huge shopping cart with like one thing in it. Yeah, you look lazy. And your, your debt, 1975, they've tripled in size since then. Since 1975. My day. Yeah.

Well, yeah. I wasn't shopping when 1975, but my mom was. but seem like with that logic they wouldn't even give you the little baskets to get stuff in. Yeah. Even then though, maybe that's for the people that are not going to get a cart, but they want to breeze through. It's like, let's give them a little something. That way they can still take a few things.

Kroger used to have, I don't go to Kroger anymore, but they have the small little in-between basket. But there's so few of them. They disappear. I think people take them home with them. You want to talk about? The little near, yeah, yeah, it's got one on the top, one on the bottom, yeah, yeah. But even if you look at like this old picture, this woman at an old, old time of grocery store, like that's, that was a big shopping cart back then.

And that looks like, like a little mini one. Yeah, look how thin that lady is. That was before they were putting high fruit toast corn syrup in the coach. Yeah, yeah. Well, she wasn't allowed to leave the house, except for the grocery store. She's excited to be out. Yeah. Back then.

Now, here's something crazy. I want to, I like having you here, you guys. I wonder if you even believe, believe something. I'm talking about you. Yeah. It'd be weird if we weren't here. Oh, I just want to bounce this stuff off. All right.

Okay. Now, a wobbly wheel on a shopping cart, you always have one, right? I immediately return and get a new car. Now, a lot of people think, now, there's not, there's not a lot of data support this. We're getting into more of this is just like. Conspiracy theory. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people think the store.

basically has no incentive to fix that wobbly wheel. Because all that wobbly wheel causes you to do is move slower through the grocery store. Oh. So if they have no reason to fix it, how bad would the wheel have to be for you to go? You know what? I'm done with this whole growth and just leave,

leave the whole store. I don't think I would ever abandon a grocery store for one bad wheel. But if two or three in a row... But if I'm switching them out, I go, listen, what's going on around here? How can I trust you with my meat? if you're letting the wheels get like this.

Right. But if those, if those, I'm not, a lot of people say they're not necessarily making the wheels wobbly, but they're like, there's not much of an incentive to fix it. Why would I want to make you be able to move faster through the store? It doesn't do anything for us. Now, it even crazier one, this one I don't believe. You ever feel like a cart is drift, it drifts in one direction?

Yes. Huh. I was going to say, I don't we get the wobbly well so much as, the will that gets stuck and won't turn. That's what I mean to. Okay. Anything that kind of... What's going on that makes this thing stop turning?

Yeah, I think they just get beat to death by people. I think they're just not treated very well. Yeah. But like some people, some of the crazier people go, oh, this is all kind of knowingly left alone by the story. This one, some people would say, you know, the cart will kind of drift. Yes. That's intentional.

Because what that does is if you're walking through, an aisle, it's just going to eventually just put you right in front of stuff on the shelves. What do you think about that? It's going to take you away from the other side. I think... Well, not when you come back now. As much as I love a conspiracy. I think that this is just neglect.

Okay. I think that they're like, it's expensive to fix this. Yeah, this is interesting because you said point blank on this podcast, you rarely attribute incompetence to what you can attribute malice. malice to it, right? Yeah. But in this situation, you're like, this is probably just the store not keeping up with the shopping. Yeah, because I don't think it's incompetence even here. I think it's just like, we've got a lot going on here. And once the buggies get bad enough, then we'll order some more. But for now, you know, we got a couple with a wobbly wheel in it.

Because it annoys everybody when you're, even when you, if you work there, when somebody's going through and it's going to, click, click, click, click, click. It's like, it's like, Like everybody's annoyed by that. I want to go, hey, why don't you switch that out real quick? Yeah. My brother-in-law is a assistant manager at Aldi. And they have the thing. I don't think I've ever been, but what do you put a quarter in?

Yeah. And then you get your quarterback when you return it. It's my least favorite grocery store of all time. Really? And people go crazy for it. Yeah, I like it. I hate it. I don't mind putting the quarter in.

Yeah. Usually you can, a lot of times I've walked up and the guy was like, you just take this, I don't care about the quarter. But it just prevents theft of shopping carts is like a huge issue for. Well, I have a joke. And I say, they say that you return the cart, that if you return the car, you get the quarter back and that's to keep people from leaving the cart out in the parking lot. And I go, well, I don't know if a quarter is doing that for me.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I'll give you a quarter to come get this out of the parking lot. Yeah, they might need to up their. What would it have to take, a 10? A 10 one or something? Yeah, I mean, it would be tough. People are not giving up a 10 there, but yeah, but it'd take five bucks.

I'd say, I'll go, all right, all right. Because it's like even in the mall, you have to pay like eight bucks to get one of those like little kid carts. And then they give you a dollar or two back when you return it. And even that is like, well, you know, I'll do it. But. Now, here's something interesting. The way the shopping carts are designed, the ergonomics of the shopping cart handle, how you push it around physically activates different muscles in your arms, which changes your

purchasing behavior in the store. Wow. So little things like that will actually, they've done studies about this, will change how you buy things in the store. Some, it's mostly overseas now, but a lot of grocery stores are using parallel handle shopping carts, almost like a wheelbarrow where you grab it like that. that. They had a study published by the Journal of Marketing in 2022, where parallel handles shopping carts significantly and substantially increased sales across a broad range of categories,

including vice and virtue products. And not just like, you know, I might buy more junk food. It's like you're buying more of everything. And why is that? It feels like it makes you feel stronger. It's something about it causes you to use different muscles in your arms. Working that chest. And you're like, yeah. I'm about to stock up on stakes. Yeah, exactly. It's just, so little things like that. I find that fascinating.

I like that, too. The child seat on the shopping cart. Do you guys use that when you're younger? Yeah, as much you mentioned, Publix has a little thing now. I mean, I guess they've always had it. I've just started using it where it's like they drive a car. Yeah, those are great. Yeah, so.

My kids love those. Yeah. So it's great for, if you've got a child, you've got taking the grocery store. But I also use the child seat, the regular one, too. Olive is just old enough now where I can. sit her in the front of it and she can sit up, sit up on it. But most people aren't at the grocery store with a baby, but they still have that little child seat out, right? So what does that little compartment in the shopping cart become if you don't have a baby? For eggs and bread. It can be for that,

but what else would you put in there maybe? Your cigarettes. Studies have shown that when that little compartment, it becomes a little spot for like little treats for you. It's separated enough. Think about, just think about how you would do it. You've got all your actual groceries in the, in the bin. And then there's a separate area where you go, oh, get a little whatever for me. It's kind of separate. Get a little endorphin rush. No, dopamine hit. No one you're about to eat that chips a hoy when you get in the car. Or whatever's in there, right? And you go, oh, this is a little treat for old me right here. It's separated. It's not, it's not. It's It's not like that's part of the groceries. It's separate enough.

So it has a benefit, even if babies aren't there. People will buy more stuff like that and put it in their little thing. We already talked about. What about the cleanliness of the handles? Do you ever wipe down the handles? I never have, you know. I think some stores will have little like Purell wipes. He wants them to be dirty.

You do it? You wipe it down? I don't, but it's so funny how you're like scoffy, even the idea of it. He desanitizes. Yeah. I sneeze on it when I go in. You're welcome, everybody. Let's talk about you walk into the store, the layout of the store.

So much goes in to what is where in the grocery store. We all know, it's well known, the milk and the eggs are going to be in the back of the store, right? That forces you to walk through everything else. But I want you to picture in your mind, you're walking into a grocery store. You got your shopping cart. You push it in. What's the first thing you see when you walk? Bread. No. Vegetables. Oh, the bakery. Yeah. I usually start to the right and it's the bakery.

And then you hit the vegetables. Well, actually, I see, like, the grocery where I go to has, like, a little floral arrangement. Exactly. Yeah. Usually it's fluent. Yeah, no. I just feel like we said a lot of things and then finally you got to, they go, exactly. You're all right. You're all right. I'm saying it's usually the produce and the flowers are going to be right up front of the. store. It looks appealing. It smells nice. Feels fresh. It creates the illusion of happiness. Yeah, it's healthy in here, right? And what also, they want you to put the healthy stuff in your cart first. You get all the healthy stuff first. That way, when you're walking around the rest of the store, you've kind of given yourself permission to get unhealthiness. Yeah, I've already got the

vegetables. Let me go ahead and get some donuts. Yeah, but if you put donuts in your cart first, You look and see. He looked like you came to the store for that. This is a theory that I've heard that when you're in the grocery store, you should only buy the things off the ends. Everything in the middle, poison. On the ends is where you're going to get the healthy stuff. Like the far right side, that's where the produce is.

And then the other side, the far left side is where, you know, milk and cheese. But all the prepackaged stuff is in the middle. Yeah, all the process stuff's in the middle. So just stay around the edge, you're saying. Yeah. Because the back is the meat. Yeah, stay around the edge. And there also is a health food section in the grocery store, which often begs the question, well, what is the rest of it?

It's a good point. Yeah. It's a good point. I was watching the SEC basketball tournament this weekend, go Vandy. And on the floor at Richland Arena, they had, you know, the difference, the signs that illuminate different businesses. Yeah. Said Sprouts, the official grocer of the SEC.

Wow. And I'm like, nobody in the South is going to Sprout. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I know some do. I do go to Sprouts, but it is not the official grocery store of the SEC. That's for sure. Pigley Wiggly, maybe. Yeah, yeah.

The murder Kroger. Yeah, yeah. That's the one of the SEC. Yeah. For sure. We're going to get to that a little bit because I want to talk about the identity that all these different grocery stores have. But we're in the produce section.

You got your shopping cart. You ever notice the produce section will have mirrors? Yeah. Think about like a stack of vegetables or fruit. A lot of times they'll have mirrors all around too. And then a little water coming down. Yeah. So that water, those misters, do absolutely nothing for the produce.

They don't benefit it in any way. They actually can cause the stuff to spoil faster because it's got all mold from the water. Literally all that does is make it look more appetizing. Make it look fresh. Make it look fresh, right? And some people, now tell me if you believe this, some people think that because you pay for those vegetables by the weight, they're getting a little bit more money from me if they make the produce wet.

The weight of the water. Yeah, of course. The water dropless, yeah. That's why you got to shake them off right there like an umbrella. You got dry them off. Those mirrors in the produce section, those are often there. It makes the piles just look so much bigger. And if you catch a glimpse of yourself, you go, I need some vegetables.

It would be funny. They were funhouse mirrors, too. Yeah. Do you have a strategy for produce? Like, do you? Well, I think it depends on the, I just got into avocados. Okay. And there's a whole, I'm pretty late to the game.

Yeah. But avocados are new. They're relatively new. I think there was an embargo on them until like that. I never ate them as a kid. I'll tell you that. No, I never even heard of them. Yeah.

kid. Now all of a sudden, they're everywhere. I remember seeing guacamole in a Mexican restaurant when I was younger and being like, that looks disgusting. It does look disgusting. You don't know what it tastes like. Do you, is there any fruits or vegetables that you don't put in the bag? A bundle of bananas I'll put right in the cart.

Yeah, bananas, cantaloupe, honeydum, watermelon, something like that. Yeah, you lost a watermelon once in your room. And in my trunk. Yeah, I lose them. Yeah. Yeah. Who doesn't these days, right? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. There was a long-standing ban on importing Mexican avocados into the U.S. until 1997. Wow. And that got lifted. And then avocado, it took a few years later. They were blowing up. They're everywhere now, right?

Yeah. I got an avocado tree. That's about to say. Don't you grow your own? Well, I've never produced any avocado, but I did grow. I have a tree, you know, three feet or so from a seed. What would it take? Does it just get a wait a lot longer? I don't know. I don't think it'll actually work in this climate, but I'm just growing it inside.

And then I take it outside in the summer. And then the pot keeps getting bigger. And, you know, I'm hoping one day. You'll get an avocado there. You got to have two, I think. Well, there's a whole thing with... To pollinate each other. Oh, okay. That makes sense. I got to get started on that other one. Don't you, like, feel them for the consistency of it. You can tell how soft it is.

Fruit? It's the, well, avocado. Avocato specifically. Well, there's a joke. I know how to tell fruit is ready to go. There's a joke where it's like, not yet, not yet, not yet, spoiled. Yeah, who has that joke? I don't know.

I think it's a meme. I don't know. Do you think it's a man? A meme. Oh. You're like, it's pretty funny. I don't know. I think he's a man.

I think Rick Roberts has the joke. Yeah. Or he says, you wouldn't see a cat doing this in China, would you? Okay. Rick is great. I went to lunch with Rick today. He started growing garden. Did he?

Yeah, he wants some advice from you. All right. Yeah, tell him to come over. Let's make it happen. Yeah. Everything's true except that last part. He didn't mention you, but he does have a garden, he said. So let's talk about, we're still on the edge of the store.

What's another thing that you'll see? It's usually on a little, like a little kiosk to itself, but it's a big item that you would at a grocery store, kind of near the front of the store. A key. A key? I'd get a key duplicated. You can't. Well, I'm thinking of Kroger, not like a Home Depot.

They usually have those in the very front of the store. I'm talking about, I'll just say it. No, no, no, ask it again. I'm bad at leading an episode. Ask it again. All right, man, it's a guess. Yeah, ask it again. I'm supposed to say gift cards.

Close. Actually, not close at all. I said it's a bad question. Ask it one more time. It's my first episode I'm leading. I'm learning. No, this has been very good. Very good.

I'm learning how to do this. I'm starting to wonder who's been doing it this whole time. What are you doing? Leading the episodes. Oh, Brian. Okay. Yeah. We'd say the question again.

Wait a minute. What does that mean? I'm just trying to build him up confidence. He's like, Aaron needs that. They're not even recording. Aaron didn't need to do your research. He just knows all this. While he's there.

Yeah, dude. Actually, we just sprung it on him right before we came in and we go. I said, I'm ready, baby. Go, Brian didn't do any research. Yeah. He's like grocery stores. Grocery stores. I got you.

It's an item, towards the front of the store, it's usually like right behind the checkout lanes, and they're right there ready to grab. Oh, gum, candy. No, no, no, behind that. Not in the checkout line. Cigarettes. Magazines.

Nothing to do with the checkout. Like, past that. Oh, CoinStar. Rotisserie chickens. Okay. You ever get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store? Yeah. Costco.

I know you know. Costco. They are famously have sold rotissory chickens for $4.99 for a long time. They got $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco. How many do you think, how many rotissory chickens do you think Costco sells every year? Oh, 150 million. You have a guess? 151 million. 147 million. Dusty wins. 147 million rotisserie chickens. So at $5.5. 147 million, that $7333 million of revenue that Costco pulls in. Wow.

How much money do you think they make on that $733 million? 633 million. Think about the overhead. You got a chicken. I don't know. Costco. There will be no math on this. Costco loses $40 million a year on rotisserie chickens.

Okay, I was thinking it would be a lot of money. Like most grocery stores for Costco, rotissory chickens is what's called a loss leader, meaning they sell them below cost. So on the chickens themselves, they lose a ton of money, but they have all kinds of other benefits in the store. What would some of those benefits be? You might buy, you know, I know, speaking from personal experience, I would go back in the day and get a rotissory chicken and a bag of Hawaiian rolls

and then go sit in the car and eat that whole. whole chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're going to buy other stuff. If you buy just a rotissory chicken, you're a psycho. So they're just trying to get you in the store to buy the chicken. Not necessarily get you in the store, but you go, well, I'm going to get a rotissory chicken, and then I'll get sides with it. I'm going to need drinks with it. Plastic forks. Exactly. High margin items that you're going to buy. If you just buy the chicken, that's kind of insane. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're always going to buy other stuff with it. And also, dude, they smell good.

They do smell good. They make the store smell good. You know, I don't even want a rotisserie chicken, but, dude, the smell. I think. I'm going to buy a lot of stuff. I think they are bad for you. Rotisserie chickens? I think so.

Well, dude, out of all the things to, I mean, that's one of the healthier things you can get. This is chicken. Yeah. Yeah. I love chicken, though. I'm not saying I don't eat them, but I. Some high margin items that you could buy, where they really make the money at the store, spices?

Yeah. They sometimes have like a 1,500 percent markup on the spices. Yeah, because you can grow oregano for like nothing, and it just grows wild. You don't even have to do anything with it. You try to buy a bottle of oregano at the store. It's outrageous. But most people are doing that. Yeah.

You know? that. They make a ton of money on that. I've also heard that they're like, that's the fruit that's going bad. I'm sure it is. I'm going to cut it up. I'm going to eat it right away. I mean, I eat it a lot. I totally do that. I get the pre-cut watermelon and, uh, because I don't want to fool. Yeah, it's like 80 bucks and you can get a whole watermelon for 75 cents. Yeah, but it's worth it. Grape's the same thing. I don't have to pull them off. Yeah. Oh, I love, no, I never buy grapes like that. You buy grapes in the tub? I just started. It's great. Yeah.

You ever have the cotton candy grapes? Do you ever have those? I don't think I have. I have. I have. I don't trust it. Dude, they're so good. I don't trust it.

You just can't think about it, though. Yeah. You got to let yourself, you got to close your eyes every now and you. I'm mostly a green grape guy. Okay. But I did a show with Dusty a few months ago, and his post-show snack was a big thing of red grapes. Oh, the red grapes. They were really good, so now I've been mixing it up a little bit.

You can even get, if you sometimes you find the organic, real dark grapes. Yeah, yeah, dark purple on the. Yeah, love that. But also the ones artificially shot up with sugar are really good to the cotton candy. The ones that are like candy. You're seeded grapes. Yeah. Freeze grapes.

You have freeze them. It's a nice little trick. It's a nice little snack, frozen grape. Yeah. I want all seeded fruit. Okay. No seedless for me. It's hard to find, but that's what I want.

Do you think that the rumor, I don't know if rumor is the right word, but I was told growing up, you swallow a watermelon seed, it's dangerous, can kill you. it'll grow a watermelon out of your ear. Yeah, exactly. Do you think that that was made up to sell seedless watermelons? Maybe, because I eat watermelon seeds. When I buy seeded watermelon, I eat it all. I eat the seeds. Oh, not by themselves.

No, not like sunflower seeds or pistachias. No, they're not as tasty, but yeah, they have a lot of benefits for it. A lot of zinc, they say. Okay. Other high margin items at the grocery store, deli meat. That's why sometimes bread is sold. at a loss too. Bread's another lost leader sometimes. Bottle water

markup on bottle water is huge. I drink so much bottle of water. What a scam. Yeah. Yeah. What a scam. Baby food's another one. How did bottled water ever take off? I remember Gaffigan had an old bit. Flint, Michigan. About, it was just some... No, it was before Flint.

It was just some French guy going, the Americans, I bet we could sell those idiots water. And now it's like, bottle water's everywhere. But I remember when it started to come out. He was going to buy water. Yeah. You can just get it from the water fountain.

Yeah. Well, the sink. Well, they make a lot of money on it. Yeah. Yeah. Here's another one. I think you mentioned that what's something at the store that you think the grocery stores will make a ton of money? High margin item, something you'll just grab at the store.

I've already mentioned it. I think you did. Gift card? Yeah, greeting cards. Oh, greeting cards. Gift cards, too. I think they, but the greeting cards, it's just a piece of paper. and they sell them for like seven or eight.

It's a scam too. I mean, I do it here and there, but it is a scam too because it's like, you ever, I mean, this is a Gaffigan joke too, I think, but it's like, you're standing in there and you're like, and I'm reading them and I go, I wouldn't say this. I'm not buying this thing that I would never say. And like, people, you buy it for someone and they read it out loud, I go, listen, I just bought this. This is not something I mean. Yeah, it's not from my heart.

Yeah. Why would you ever buy a greeting card? Well, like a, you know, like a birthday card for my wife. Just birthdays. You know, something like that. Not a Valentine's Day card? No, no, of course not. What about a just-because card?

A graduation, something like that? Maybe graduation? Yeah, I don't think so. Okay. You know, again, my wife may buy this. You tell me when Brian Skid graduate to high school, you're not going to get a graduation card for? Oh, it'll all be digital then, and I'll probably send a thing. through my eye.

I'll be dead. Yeah. Jeez. Don't put that out into the world. You talk about a scam. There are a bunch of legal ways that these grocery stores can just flat out lie to you. Shrinkflation is a big one. We talked about shrinkflation.

Yeah. That instead of increasing the price, they just decrease the amount of stuff you're buying. Yeah. Same size bag, less stuff inside the bag. Yeah. That's kind of a way of it. You have an example? Like a lot of the products, the pre-packaged stuff, like a bag of chips and stuff like that,

price stays the same. There's just less food in the bag. So they're in cahoots with whoever the manufacturer is. Well, these are, I'm talking about ways that the store is lying to us and the manufacturers are, right? But for sure, they're in cahoots. There is no. And the products themselves. It's all illusion of choice.

But if the manufacturer makes a smaller bag of chips, do you think they charge less the grocery store? and then the grocery store still charges you the same to make more money? I think they're all making more money at the end of the day. Or at least making the same amount of money with, yeah. My uncle used to work at the grocery store way back in the day, like when it was probably more of a mom-and-pop type situation. And he would say they would know when the mill would get a raise, when the people at the mill would get a raise.

And so they would raise all their prices at the grocery store because, you know, people, and then they would be able to buy the same with the same. with the same amount of money, but they felt like, you know, they had more money. Wow. I can remember when, now you don't even think about the sliding doors, but I can remember when that became a thing. Like, it used to be, it would be a swing door, glass swing door, but you would literally

have to push it open. A little bell would go off, probably. Yeah, I think there was a little bell, and there was an in and out, so you didn't, you know, run into somebody. But then all of a sudden, they started becoming automated where it wasn't the sliding it opened, but the door would just come. Oh, I remember those doors. And it was like voodoo magic.

Like, what in the world? People were scared to go in. Yeah, this is grocery store from the future. Yeah. Price anchoring, that's another way where they can increase the price and then bring it back down and say it's on sale. Oh, yeah. Back to the original price.

And also the cards, the loyalty cards. Okay. I was in a Kroger the other day and this in McMill, and the cashier goes, you have your Kroger card? And I forgot my wallet. And I just had some cash on me. And I go, no, I forgot it. She goes, do you know your number?

And I go, no, I never signed up for it. And she goes, okay. And then she just scans and gives me that. Sure. Did not scan her own card. She just, and then she goes, told me the total. I go, well, how much would I have saved if I had a Kroger card? Because most of the time, they'll go, well, I'll just use mine.

I'll just use the store card. She didn't do it. I go, how much will I save? She goes, I don't know. You'd have some. And I was trying to hint to her. Why don't you help a brother out here? Yeah, come on.

95% of Kroger transactions use a loyalty card. Yeah. 95%. Almost everybody's swiping them. And they do that. They collect a ton of data about you. And then that allows them to make, they can use what you're buying to make inferences about you. And then they can market products directly to you.

How? You, you, I have a little game I want to play. Okay. Basically, I've created some fake grocery store receipts, and I want you two to look at it and make judgments about the person. See what you can tell about the person based on what they bought at the grocery store. Okay, I'm going to pull it up here. We've got, I've got it visually if you're watching, and if you're listening, I'll read it. This is a grocery store receipt from Quick Cart Grocery, the grocery store I made up.

They used Apple Pay. They bought a rotissory chicken, Caesar salad kit, family-sized mac and cheese, garlic bread, ready to bake, two-liter Dr. Pepper, chocolate chip cookies, and 50-count paper plates. Well, this is clearly you, Aaron. Come on. Come on, man. Come on, dude. I worked hard on this game. Tell me everything you think you know about this person based on this purchase.

You want me to do it? Yeah, I mean, I'd love for the two of you. Just how to do it. I'll say that this person doesn't. not cook. Mm-hmm. And they have a family, small family. Small family?

Probably, I would say, husband, wife, two kids. Okay. And who's buying this? Is this the father or the... This is the... I'd say this is the mom, because there is a Caesar salad in there. Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. The dad wouldn't grab the Caesar salad.

No. Probably a tall salad with a little ranch dressing. I'm going to say they have teenage kids. Okay. Based on the Dr. Pepper. to Dr. Pepper. I mean, some of these families are given sodas to like one year olds now.

It's pretty crazy. The mac and cheese is already refrigerated. So they're not even heating that up. This is, they're not even cooking that. They're about to go out. This is probably some type of outdoor event. Maybe they're even. Oh, yeah.

Maybe it's a, okay. Is that? The 50 count plate, I don't think they need all those plates, but that's the smallest amount they had in the store. Do you think this was not a planned meal? This feels like it's very last minute. It feels planned to me. Well.

Oh, the garlic bread's ready to bake, though. You're going to need something. Yeah, but the chocolate chip cookies from a bakery makes me feel like they're going to an event. Just grabbing a pack of it. Yeah, like you just get some chips. But ready to bake garlic bread, you're going to need an oven. You are going to eat an oven. So I've got a few more of these, so we'll do it.

This is like this is a middle-class father grabbing dinner for his family on the way home from work. Now, it could be all these other things. These are just the inferences that I drew from it, right? Multiple children at home, like you said, not a day. They just grab something. That's why you're just grabbing this. Yeah. All right. Y'all like this? We got a few more. Now, this is good. I love this. All right. This is another one. You got another receipt here. This was made at 1142 p.m. I already know what this guy's using a prepaid visa gift card. They got Ben and Jerry's. Trace him. A pine of Ben and Jerry's.

Tyson grilled and ready chicken strips. Minute Made OJ. Small bottle of it. Advil. Gum. An LED nightlight. And a single pack of white Haines T-shirts. This could be Dusty.

No, no. Dusty's not buying ice cream. This guy's going to be doing some drinking. But he also has to go to work in the morning. What makes you say that? The Advil. Well, he's got to be doing some drinking. He's got the OJ, so he's going to mix that with some sort of liquor.

And he's got the chicken strips because he's like, well, I want to, you know, I don't want to drink on an empty stomach. He's married. Yeah. He's got the gum to hide. Oh, okay. That was what I was saying from going to work. Oh, okay. And then the Advil, obviously, because it would be hungover.

White T-shirt, because he's about to get wild. He'll need to replace that shirt. Okay. And then. Interesting. Yeah, this is a completely different route than the one that I took on this. But maybe Brian has a different type. An LED nightlight.

Yeah. You get that at a grocery store? You can. Sure. You can have a little like a little home good aisle usually. That one throws me off the most. Yeah. I'm trying to decide what that's about.

Who? Did you create this? I made all these. So you're just coming up with the answers too. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. All right.

He's not tracking people down. Well, I thought maybe. Let me see your receipt. Okay. So this is a shopper staying somewhere temporarily, like a hotel or a new apartment. The prepaid visa card, like there's banking issues or like it's a transitional time. Oh, I miss the payment method. Yeah, the prepaid visa gift card.

Yeah. And they don't have access to a full kitchen. They got the grilled and ready chicken strips. Yeah. And they got a little mini fridge. I think it's somebody temporarily displaced at a hotel or something. That's why they bought the white T-shirts. and they got a LED nightline, like a bad apartment or something.

I'm going to say that this could also be correct and what I'm saying. Totally agree with you. You'd have a lot more data. You'd have a bunch of different purchases. Because depending on where you live, you're not going to be able to get the mixer for the OJ at the, you know. Right, right. You're going to do one more? Yeah.

One more of these. This is Quick Cart Grocery, 3.14 p.m. with a Visa debit card, a 24 pack of frozen waffles, ready whip whipped cream, Fabreeze fabric spray, two boxes of luncheables, a gallon of distilled water, sticky notes, and butterfly bandages.

All right, so this guy, where's a CPAP? Sleep at mea. That's what the distilled water is for? Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. I put that in there for you,

Brad. I knew you'd know that one. Yeah, yeah. Sticky notes, Bright pink. Yeah. Hmm. I'm trying to think what that would be about.

I think this is a mom. Mm-hmm. And they have a young daughter, and they're getting her some stuff for school tomorrow. Okay. And then breakfast. She's going to do waffles, put a little whipped cream on. And then the lunch. So what does that tell you about the family if they're having whipped cream waffles in the morning?

They're overweight. I was not particularly health. But I think you're getting to the point. That's why he wears a CPAT. And the Fabriz is for the multiple cats they own. Now, obviously, at the end of the day, this could just be a fat guy buying frozen waffles for himself at eating lunch. It could be.

But the sticky notes. I mean, maybe. But you got to think it's just hundreds and hundreds of these things over time. You can start to paint a picture about what's going on. And maybe the bright pink wasn't a choice by him. it was there. It's just whatever you can describe it. Butterfly bandage makes me think, yeah, it's children.

Yep. So this is a parent of a child. They're not health conscious. This is a, I think it's a spontaneous trip to the store after something happened, right? So they've got like the butterfly bandages. Maybe they spilled something. That's why you get the fabric spray, all this stuff. And then somebody in the house has a CPAP machine.

So I always thought this was interesting of just like looking at a receipt and go, what's going on in this person's life here? That's what these stores are doing. with all of your data. I like this. So then they know, we got one more. I feel like we're running out of time, but we can,

we can move on. Let's kind of wrap it up here. I'm trying to think if there's any. Trader Joe's was ranked the number one supermarket in America by customers. Number one overall satisfaction. You know,

I do find them to be very friendly in Trader Joe's. The customers are less friendly than the staff. 100%. And the Trader Joe's that I was talking about with a horrible parking lot, they're very familiar with my comedy.

Oh, that's nice. And I go in there and they always say nice things to me. Yeah. Get to the root of it. Guess what's number two, grocery store? I'm going to say Whole Foods. Publix. Oh.

Publics. Well, Publix. Whole Foods is number seven. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's I love. But as for a regular grocery store, Publix is tip top. I mean, it is, anytime I'm driving on the road and I see a Publix, I'm like, give it up. You know what I mean? I love a Publix.

Well, do you know, the number one most important factor in loyalty to a grocery store, time and time again for people. The number one most important thing. The number one driver of loyalty. Is that you keep coming back. He defines it. No, I don't. Cleanliness of a story.

Oh, yeah. And Publix is clean, man. Even more than price. Yeah. It's the cleanliness. Well, that, you know, I'm not trying to trash Aldi, but that's what people always say. And I go in Aldi and I go,

this is very unorganized. And Publix, they have. it put together. Shopping is a pleasure. Yeah. That's Toronto. And it always is. I like a public stew. I'd say in the south, the biggest grocery store is Kroger. And I'd say the majority people call it Kroger's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what else I like, though? I'm going to give a shout out, Harris Teeter. Okay. I love a Harris Teeter. Yeah. North Carolina, there's a lot of there. Charleston, we had some. I love a Harris Teeter. All right, grocery stores, thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me take the reins today, Brian. That was fun. It was

fun. Was it fun to sit back? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to for Dusty next week. Yeah, I mean,

I can't wait to follow that up. Do some PowerPoint. Yeah, I mean, that's, you really put that together well, and I feel like next week is going to be good. Where are you guys going to be? This weekend, Florida,

I'm with Johnny W. And Ed Wiley. It's called the Live and Laughter tour. I thought it was live and laughter. Oh, oh. It's called the Live and Latter. laughter tour. So come on out to that.

Interchangeable, because it is live. It is live. It should be the live and laughter live tour. Yeah. Yeah. Live and laughter. I guess I mean, what would that mean? You're living and you're laughing, man.

You gotta live. You gotta have laughter, man. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm gonna be live. There may or may not be some laughter. But then March 29th, Brian Bates and Friends, here at the lab at Zanis?

The live or laughter tours. We're one or the other. I can't promise both. Yeah, what is Zanis? March 29th, Brian Bates and Friends. This is the night before my special. So this is very important so I can, you know, do a dress rehearsal. So come on out to that.

Some would argue this show is more important than the special itself. So come to that. And then March 30th, of course, is my special. These guys are on it. There's a decent chance that Dusty will do more time than I will. But. It's the price you pay to have him on the show. Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate you giving me the 45. Yeah. And then you're going to let me close it out. Yeah. And then he'll come out and do some more time again. Yeah. Host line it.

Yeah. Aaron Weber here. I'm going to be in Minneapolis at the end of the month at Sisyphus Brewing Company. I've never been there, but I've heard really good things about that venue. So I'm excited to be there in Minneapolis. And then I got a couple shows here at Zanies in Nashville during the Nashville Comedy Festival in Amund. April. So coming up, Minneapolis and Nashville, coming out and see me on the road. We're doing it.

What about you, Dusty? All right, I got two more weekends, and then I'm going to take April off, all except for April 14th, where I also be at Zanis during the festival. This weekend, Clearwater, Florida, Orlando, Florida, Friday and Saturday. That's March 20th and 21st, and then March 27th and 28th, Paducah, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Missouri. Nice. And these shows are all selling very well. So get some tickets now. Why you can. Yeah.

Do it now. Because after I have a third baby, I make a quick comedy. So see it while you can see it. I'll take those gigs. Okay. Me and Brian will merge together and become you and just take all your work. I feel like the two of us together, that could be, that's you. Yeah.

Some amount of time. Yeah, maybe the show would be the same way. Maybe your two headlining sets could. I don't know. That is sometimes. 45 and 45. If I don't like the crowd, I'm doing 45. Yeah.

See, I sometimes if the crowd's not good, I feel like you, you stay longer. You make them, you make them pay. Punish them. I've seen you do that firsthand. Yeah, you make them pay. Let's fill a hotel. Yeah, yeah, you make them pay. All right, well, that is it.

Great job, Aaron. That was so much fun. This was great. Thank you, everybody. We'll be back next week with whatever Dusty comes up with. Here we go. We're having a good time. God bless.

All right. Good afternoon. The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply.